Big Jim 5 Page 3

  They seated themselves on their bunks, traded stares through the iron bars. Benito showed his buckteeth in an optimistic grin.

  “All will be well, amigo Jim. The young rurale—he was loco when he accused us—and these other rurales jump— how you say—to the conclusion.”

  “Maybe Shelton didn’t really accuse us at all,” mused Jim. “He only described us—damned if I know why—but then it was Carmody who jumped to conclusions.”

  “If the young one dies ...” began Benito.

  “We’re in trouble,” frowned Jim, “as if I need to tell you.”

  “But every man—under the laws of this country—is entitled to a fair trial,” said Benito.

  “I’m no lawyer,” said Jim, “but I might just decide to conduct my own defense. Jeb Parsons’s testimony ought to be worth something. Shelton must’ve been attacked some time after he quit the Well.”

  “Por cierto,” shrugged the Mex.

  “Maybe while we were eating lunch with Jeb and his family,” said Jim.

  “Si,” nodded Benito. “But this will be hard to prove.”

  “Yeah.” Jim scowled at the iron bars and hungered for a smoke. “That’s the hell of it.”

  The Sheltons and their kin were old Alvarez County identities and many in number. Carmody had to disperse an angry dozen of them from the area fronting the law office, before he could cross the street and proceed to Hidalgo Road, the thoroughfare on which the Flood house was located.

  He was admitted by the medico’s rotund and always cheerful spouse, a woman who had long ago realized the futility of a too personal concern for her husband’s patients.

  “It was different when we were younger,” she confided to Carmody now. “I had the idea that a doctor’s wife should be taking a personal interest, you know? But it didn’t work out that way. We had no kids of our own, and I found myself fretting over every youngster carried into this house, and all the old folks as well. It got that way that all of Alvarez County was my family—I was worrying about everybody!”

  “I know how you feel, Minna,” he nodded.

  “About young Wayne Shelton,” she shrugged, “I’m as sorry as anybody else—but fretting won’t help him.”

  “Doc still with him?” asked Carmody.

  “Yes. But you can go in.”

  Over the years, the Floods had found it necessary to add a couple of bedrooms to their already sizeable home; this was Alvarez County’s unofficial hospital. In one of these rooms, Wayne Shelton lay on a cot, heavily bandaged, motionless, his breathing labored. The corpulent, balding medico stood beside the cot, frowning down at the patches of ashen face visible through the white bandaging. As the sheriff quietly entered, he told him,

  “We can talk. There’s no danger we’d disturb him. I’ve given him heavy sedation.”

  “Now that you’ve had time to check him over,” prodded Carmody, “how are his chances?”

  “I’ll offer no opinions at this early stage,” muttered Flood. “This is the time of crisis, Lee. That head injury is concussion at best and a chronic fracture at worst. He’s in a state of shock and that’s only to be expected. Also, I can’t overlook the possibility that a broken rib could pierce a lung.”

  “He said nothing more?” asked Carmody.

  “Not a word,” frowned the doctor.

  “Well, he said enough, and let’s be grateful for that much,” growled Carmody. “At least he identified his attackers.”

  “That’s small consolation to a dying man,” opined Flood.

  “From what Wayne said,” muttered Carmody, “we were able to recognize his attackers on sight. They came riding into town this afternoon …”

  “Surely not.” Flood eyed him incredulously.

  “Over confident,” shrugged Carmody. “I’ve seen others of their breed—the hard-cases—the tough hombres that figure they can get away with anything. Anyway they’re in jail now.”

  “I’m concerned with the healing of damaged bodies, not the workings of a twisted mentality,” said Flood, “but I must confess I’m curious about the motive for this attack. You said Wayne came in on his own horse, his money still in his pockets, his weapons untouched …”

  “It wasn’t robbery,” said Carmody. His mouth set in a hard line, as he studied the unconscious man on the cot. “It was just plain, old-fashioned brutality.”

  ~*~

  The eastbound stage had finished its run at Amarillo, the end of the line for Barney Steele and Asa Harnett. From Amarillo, passengers wishing to travel further east or to the north bought passage at the railroad depot. In the morning, after a good night’s sleep, this crew would begin another run to the west, all the way to San Jose in the westernmost sector of Arizona Territory.

  At least that was the usual procedure, and when Asa tagged his taciturn partner into the depot office, he expected everything to proceed in the same old way. Horrie Roper, the Amarillo manager of the line, would walk them downtown and buy them a drink. They might play a few hands of poker before retiring to the room permanently reserved for them at the McHenry Hotel. Always the same routine.

  On this occasion, however, the baggy-eyed, cigar-chewing manager greeted them with less than his usual good humor. He seemed pre-occupied. Also, he looked downright uncomfortable, especially when Asa perched on a corner of his desk and reached over to pound his shoulder.

  “How ya been, Horrie, you old sonofagun, you old rumpot?”

  Roper summoned up a weak apology for a grin, but seemed incapable of looking Asa in the eye. The usually taciturn Barney enquired,

  “What’s ailin’ you, Horrie? Your belly actin’ up again?”

  “I’m all right,” sighed Roper. “Only hope Asa won’t feel too bad—after what I got to tell him.”

  Asa suddenly became serious.

  “You ain’t had a telegraph from Alvarez,” he apprehensively demanded, “about Ruthy?”

  “No.” Roper shook his head. “Nothin’ like that.”

  Ruthy was Asa’s daughter, aged twenty-two, very pretty and his only kin. They lived in a small, neatly kept home on a residential street running parallel with Alvarez’s main stem. It rarely occurred to the veteran shotgun guard, while travelling to all compass points on his daily chores, that Ruthy could be anything but safe in Alvarez. She was intelligent, healthy, resourceful.

  “Well,” he frowned, “just so long as Ruthy ain’t sick, or anything like that.”

  “It’s not like that at all,” mumbled Roper. “It’s something else.” He tried to match Asa’s stare, but couldn’t. His gaze dropped to the litter of papers on his desk. “Asa—I have to pay you off now.”

  “Pay me off?” blinked Asa.

  “I mean—for good and all,” said Roper. “Yeah. You’re fired, Asa. And I hope I’d never need to convince you that it wasn’t my idea. If it was up to me, you’d go on working for the Talbot line for the rest of your days.”

  “What the hell ...?” began Barney.

  “It’s a joke,” shrugged Asa. “Horrie’s trying to get back at me for all the times I’ve joshed him.”

  “I wish it was a joke,” Roper gloomily declared. “I’d as soon forfeit my own pension than see you put out to pasture.”

  “He means it,” breathed Asa. “I swear he means it!”

  “Instructions from head office,” muttered Roper. “I guess you both know Junior inherited the business after old Josh died ...” He was referring to the recent demise of Joshua Talbot Senior, founder of the stage line. Upon his death, the management of the line had passed to the old man’s son and heir, Joshua Junior. “College-educated and all. New ideas—fancy ideas. The trouble with whippersnappers like Junior is they lose the common touch—you know what I mean? He sits in back of a shiny desk in Cordelia City, reads letters of complaint from a few stiff-necks, and …”

  “What kind of complaints?” asked Barney.

  Roper grimaced, gagging on the word.

  “Familiarity.”

  “What the hell,” wondered Asa, “does that mean?”

  “Familiarity with the passengers,” sighed Roper. “A few psalm-singing old biddies write complaints to head office. It seems they don’t appreciate you passing remarks about their clothes—and some of the men don’t like to have their backs slapped by what they call ‘the hired help’.” He shook his head in disgust. “Some folks you can never satisfy. All of a sudden, people get sensitive.”

  “I ain’t familiar,” protested Asa. “I’m just friendly!”

  “You know that, and we know that,” nodded Roper. “But head office calls it familiarity.”

  “I been warnin’ Asa for years about how he talks too much,” frowned Barney, “but I never believed he’d get fired on account of it. Land sakes, Horrie, it ain’t enough reason for firin’ an old hand like Asa.”

  “Junior thinks it’s enough reason,” shrugged Roper.

  “He ain’t half the man his pappy was!” fumed Asa.

  “That’s a fact,” agreed Roper. “He’s all high-toned and got his nose in the air, aims to make the Talbot Line the most respected transportation service in the southwest. At least that’s what he says.” He stood up, reached across the desk to grasp Asa’s trembling hand. “I’m sorry, old timer. It’s not of my choosing. I just have to do like I’m told. Junior says pay you off, and that’s the way it has to be.”

  “Who’ll ride shotgun for me tomorrow?” demanded Barney.

  “Nate Tucker,” said Roper.

  “Him?” gasped Asa. “That—that no smokin’, no drinkin’ bluenose? You’d hire Tucker—to replace me?”

  In a matter of moments, his world had collapsed. To be fired, penalized for being friendly, was bad enough. To be replaced by a man he despised was even worse. Asa couldn’t abide teetota
lers—any teetotalers—and Nathan Tucker was a choice example of the breed, self-righteous, sanctimonious to his fingertips. But he was also a fair hand with a shotgun, and well known for his punctuality, which was why the Talbot Line had hired him.

  Asa Harnett didn’t retire to the McHenry Hotel that night; instead he headed straight for the nearest saloon.

  Three – Birth of the Laughing Ghost

  Within an hour of his being paid off by the Amarillo manager of the Talbot Stage Line, Asa had spent a goodly percentage of his pay on whisky; he was leaning on the bar in a saloon known as Morrisey’s. If events followed their natural course, he would be stone-broke and severely hung over by tomorrow’s dawn.

  But a curious change took place at this time. Asa got drunk, but not very. It seemed his indignation was so bitter and so active that it could not be quelled—not even by raw whisky. And there were other changes. The most talkative hombre in the Southwest had suddenly become the most taciturn. He had been talkative all his life, talkative and friendly, as sociable a man as had ever ridden shotgun, and what had it gotten him? He was fired. The sharpest shooter, the most loyal employee the line had ever known, had been put out to pasture. He writhed under the indignity of it. He cursed Joshua Talbot Junior and the handful of stiffnecks who had complained of his attitude toward the passengers, but he cursed under his breath.

  It seemed a time for rash action, so he descended upon the roulette layout and began betting heavily. He would gamble it away—every last cent—and then have extra cause for feeling sorry for himself. But it didn’t work out that way. He recouped all the money he had expended on liquor and won three hundred and eighty dollars more. Rarely had he been so solvent.

  The rebellious mood was still upon him, when he visited another and larger saloon, the Occidental Casino. Here, he ignored the roulette wheel and concentrated his attention on the faro layout. Never before had he showed a profit from faro. Tonight, in a little under twenty minutes, he won a little over two hundred dollars.

  “Ain’t nothin’ I can do except go along with it,” he informed his half-empty whisky glass. “Whatever happens, I just have to go along with it—because it’s in the stars—it’s Fate.”

  “Sorry, old-timer,” drawled the bartender. “What was that you said? I wasn’t close enough to hear.”

  “I wasn’t talkin’ to you,” grunted Asa. “I was talkin’ to the whisky.”

  The barkeep shrugged resignedly and moved away to attend the other drinkers. A townsman then materialized beside Asa, showed him a rifle and a box of cartridges, and confided,

  “I’m cleaned out—unless I can go back to that roulette wheel and win back some of what I’ve lost. I won’t beg a handout from any man, but I’ll sell this Winchester and a box of forty-four-forty shells. What do you say, friend?”

  He named a figure which, to Asa, seemed quite fair. Asa examined the rifle, decided it was in perfect condition. Curiously, he owned no firearms. The shotgun he had toted so many years had been the property of the Talbot company. With a shotgun or a rifle, any kind of long gun, he was quite a marksman. With a pistol, he couldn’t hit the barn wall. This weapon was a bargain at the price asked—and wasn’t this Fate at work again? The money changed hands. He stuffed the box of shells into an already sagging pocket, tucked the stock of the Winchester under his arm and wandered out into Amarillo’s main street.

  How to get home to Alvarez? Doggone it, he didn’t even own a horse, and he wasn’t about to beg a ride on tomorrow’s westbound. Travel as a passenger—with Stainless Nate Tucker on the box beside old Barney? Never in a million years!

  An uptown horse-dealer was willing to let Asa examine his string in lamplight. Asa was becoming heavily conscious of the cool night air, swaying slightly, speaking somewhat incoherently, but he figured he still knew a good cayuse when he saw one. A white gelding took his fancy. The dealer named a figure, and, automatically, Asa dickered. A price was finally agreed upon and, for an extra thirty-five dollars, the dealer supplied him with a secondhand saddle, blanket and bridle.

  “And now I’m independent,” Asa reflected. “Now at least I can ride home on my own horse, with money in my pockets, so Ruthy won’t feel so bad when I tell her I’m fired.”

  It was long after midnight when he idled the calico away from Amarillo’s western outskirts. He was still brooding, yearning to avenge himself against the high-falutin’ Josh Talbot Junior, when he rode in sight of the line strung behind a house on the edge of town, a line from which hung a sheet. The calico halted at his jerk on the rein and the idea was born—as wild, as impulsive a notion as had ever occurred to him. Maybe it was his bitter indignation, maybe his over-indulgence in whisky. Whatever the reason, he acted quickly.

  The sheet was voluminous—double bed size. Having whisked it from the line, folded it and stuffed it into his saddlebag, he left two ten dollar bills in the yard, plainly visible, protruding from under a flat rock near the privy.

  At dawn, squatting beside the calico in the concealment of a rock-cleft, gazing down at the winding ribbon of the stage-trail, he prepared to put his scheme into operation.

  With the point of his jack-knife blade he had bored two holes in the sheet. He stuffed his Stetson into his saddlebag and draped the sheet over himself.

  Thus was launched the brief but eventful career of the most startling apparition ever to bedevil stage crews of the Talbot line. At nine o’clock that morning, when the westbound rolled within sight of Asa’s position, he tested the efficiency of his newly-acquired Winchester. The rifle barked four times in rapid succession. The first slug tugged at the peak of Nate Tucker’s Stetson. The second gouged a chunk of wood off the extreme edge of the driver’s seat. The third ricocheted off a rear wheel, whining like a banshee. The fourth bored a neat hole through a trunk secured to the coach roof.

  Three of the westbound passengers were women and, not surprisingly, had begun screaming. The stony-faced, gaunt and humorless Tucker took a firmer grip on his shotgun and announced,

  “We’re bein’ attacked.”

  “Is that so?” scowled Barney Steele, as he cracked his whip. “And how long did it take you to figure that out?” The stage rolled past the clutter of lava-rock to the right of the trail, with the female passengers still screaming, the male passengers cursing luridly and Nate Tucker anxiously scanning the rocks, hoping for a glimpse of the culprit. His eyebrows shot up, as one of the women shrieked,

  “There it is ...!”

  “Holy. sufferin’ Hannah!” breathed Barney, darting a glance away to the right.

  “He’s out of range!” fretted Tucker.

  The rider was clearly visible, sharply silhouetted against the blue morning sky—a white wraith on a prancing white horse, wildly gesticulating, emitting a high-pitched, strident laugh that sounded loud and clear above the clatter of hooves.

  Abruptly, the apparition disappeared. Of course there was no trick to that; Asa needed only to put his mount to the slope on the far side of the rocks and then gallop across an open strip of prairie, keeping the bulk of the rock-mound between himself and the moving stage.

  Barney kept his team racing for a half-mile, before slowing them. It then occurred to him to call a query to the passengers.

  “Anybody hit?”

  “No!” a male voice answered. “But all three of these females have fainted!”

  Another male passenger thrust his head out a window and yelled to Barney.

  “Who was that galoot on the white horse?”

  “How in tarnation would I know?” fumed Barney. “He didn’t blame well introduce himself! All he did was shoot at us!”

  Westbound stages always made a noon stop at Baileyville, a small settlement some twenty miles from the eastern boundary of Alvarez County. It was Barney’s habit to enter Baileyville at slow speed and as quietly as possible, because Baileyville folk were an especially lethargic bunch; he didn’t relish seeing a towner trampled by the team because he moved too slowly to get clear. This time, thanks to the Laughing Ghost, the westbound entered Baileyville at seven times its normal speed, hauled by a bolting team. Near the east edge of town, the Ghost had appeared again. He got off just one shot, and the slug burned the rumped of the leftside team-leader, with the inevitable consequences.